Famous Speeches Of Gandhiji Banaras Hindu
University SpeechFebruary 4, 1916

[Pandit Malaviya had invited Gandhiji to speak on the occasion of the
opening of the Banaras Hindu University. Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy, had
come specially to lay the foundation-stone of the University. To protect
his life extra precautions were taken by the police. They were omnipresent
and all houses along the route were guarded. Banaras was, so to say, in a
state of siege.

Eminent persons from al over India had come. Many of them delivered addresses.
On February 4, 1916 it was Gandhiji’s turn to address the audience, mostly
consisting of impressionable youths. A galaxy of princes, bedecked and
bejeweled, had occupied the dias. The Maharaja of Darbhanga was in the chair.

Gandhiji who was clad in a short, coarse dhoti1, Kathiawadi cloak and turban
rose to speak. The police precautions and the luxury around him hurt him deeply.
Turning to the audience, Gandhiji said that he wanted to think audibly-speak
without reserve:]

I
wish to tender my humble apology for the long delay that took place before I was
able to reach this place. And you will readily accept the apology when I tell
you that I am not responsible for the delay nor is any human agency responsible
for it. The fact is that I am like animal on show, and my keepers in their
overkindness always manage to neglect a necessary chapter in this life, and,
that is, pure accident. In this case, they did not provide for the series of
accidents that happened to us-to me, keepers, and my carriers. Hence this delay.

Friends, under the influence of the matchless eloquence of Mrs. Besant who has
just sat down, pray, do not believe that our University has become a finished
product, and that all the young men who are to come to the University, that has
yet to rise and come into existence, have also come and returned from it
finished citizens of a great empire. Do not go away with any such impression,
and if you, the student world to which my remarks are supposed to be addressed
this evening, consider for one moment that the spiritual life, for which this
country is noted and for which this country has no rival, can be transmitted
through the lip, pray, believe me, you are wrong. You will never be able merely
through the lip, to give the message that India, I hope, will one day deliver to
the world. I myself have been fed up with speeches and lectures. I except the
lectures that have been delivered here during the last two days from this
category, because they are necessary. But I do venture to suggest to you that we
have now reached almost the end of our resources in speech-making; it is not
enough that our ears are feasted, that our eyes are feasted, but it is necessary
that our hearts have got to be touched and that out hands and feet have got to
be moved.

We
have been told during the last two days how necessary it is, if we are to retain
our hold upon the simplicity of Indian character, that our hands and feet should
move in unison with our hearts. But this is only by way of preface. I wanted to
say it is a matter of deep humiliation and shame for us that I am compelled this
evening under the shadow of this great college, in this sacred city, to address
my countrymen in a language that is foreign to me. I know that if I was
appointed an examiner, to examine all those who have been attending during these
two days this series of lectures, most of those who might be examined upon these
lectures would fail. And why? Because they have not been touched.

I was
present at the sessions of the great Congress in the month of December. There
was a much vaster audience, and will you believe me when I tell you that the
only speeches that touched the huge audience in Bombay were the speeches that
were delivered in Hindustani? In Bombay, mind you, not in Banaras where
everybody speaks Hindi. But between the vernaculars of the Bombay Presidency on
the one hand and Hindi on the other, no such great dividing line exists as there
does between English and the sister language of India; and the Congress audience
was better able to follow the speakers in Hindi. I am hoping that this
University will see to it that the youths who come to it will receive their
instruction through the medium of their vernaculars. Our languages the
reflection of ourselves, and if you tell me that our languages are too poor to
express the best thought, then say that the sooner we are wiped out of existence
the better for us. Is there a man who dreams that English can ever become the
national language of India? Why this handicap on the nation? Just consider for
one moment what an equal race our lads have to run with every English lad.

I had
the privilege of a close conversation with some Poona professors. They assured
me that every Indian youth, because he reached his knowledge through the English
language, lost at least six precious years of life. Multiply that by the numbers
of students turned out by our schools and colleges, and find out for yourselves
how many thousand years have been lost to the nation. The charge against us is
that we have no initiative. How can we have any, if we are to devote the
precious years of our life to the mastery of a foreign tongue? We fail in this
attempt also. Was it possible for any speaker yesterday and today to impress his
audience as was possible for Mr. Higginbotham? It was not the fault of the
previous speakers that they could not engage the audience. They had more than
substance enough for us in their addresses. But their addresses could not go
home to us. I have heard it said that after all it is English educated India
which is leading and which is leading and which is doing all the things for the
nation. It would be monstrous if it were otherwise. The only education we
receive is English education. Surely we must show something for it. But suppose
that we had been receiving during the past fifty years education through our
vernaculars, what should we have today? We should have today a free India, we
should have our educated men, not as if they were foreigners in their own land
but speaking to the heart of the nation; they would be working amongst the
poorest of the poor, and whatever they would have gained during these fifty
years would be a heritage for the nation. Today even our wives are not the
sharers in our best thought. Look at Professor Bose and Professor Ray and their
brilliant researches. Is it not a shame that their researches are not the common
property of the masses?

Let us
now turn to another subject.

The
Congress has passed a resolution about self-government, and I have no doubt that
the All-India Congress Committee and the Muslim League will do their duty and
come forward with some tangible suggestions. But I, for one, must frankly
confess that I am not so much interested in what they will be able to produce as
I am interested in anything that the student world is going to produce or the
masses are going to produce. No paper contribution will ever give us
self-government. No amount of speeches will ever make us fit for
self-government. It is only our conduct that will fit for us it. And how are we
trying to govern ourselves?

I
want to think audibly this evening. I do not want to make a speech and if you
find me this evening speaking without reserve, pray, consider that you are only
sharing the thoughts of a man who allows himself to think audibly, and if you
think that I seem to transgress the limits that courtesy imposes upon me, pardon
me for the liberty I may be taking. I visited the Vishwanath temple last
evening, and ad I was walking through those lanes, these were the thoughts that
touched me. If a stranger dropped from above on to this great temple, and he had
to consider what we as Hindus were, would he not be justified in condemning us?
Is not this great temple a reflection of our own character? I speak feelingly,
as a Hindu. Is it right that the lanes of our sacred temple should be as dirty
as they are? The houses round about are built anyhow. The lanes are tortuous and
narrow. If even our temples are not models of roominess and cleanliness, what
can our self-government be? Shall our temples be abodes of holiness, cleanliness
and peace as soon as the English have retired from India, either of their own
pleasure or by compulsion, bag and baggage?

I entirely
agree with the President of the Congress that before we think of
self-government, we shall have to do the necessary plodding. In every city there
are two divisions, the cantonment and the city proper. The city mostly is a
stinking den. But we are a people unused to city life. But if we want city life,
we cannot reproduce the easy-going hamlet life. It is not comforting to think
that people walk about the streets of Indian Bombay under the perpetual fear of
dwellers in the storeyed building spitting upon them. I do a great deal of
railway traveling. I observe the difficulty of third-class passengers. But the
railway administration is by no means to blame for all their hard lot. We do not
know the elementary laws of cleanliness. We spit anywhere on the carriage floor,
irrespective of the thoughts that it is often used as sleeping space. We do not
trouble ourselves as to how we use it; the result is indescribable filth in the
compartment. The so-called better class passengers over we their less fortunate
brethern. Among them I have seen the student world also; sometimes they behave
no better. They can speak English and they have worn Norfolk jackets and,
therefore, claim the right to force their way in and command seating
accommodation.

I have turned
the searchlight all over, and as you have given me the privilege of speaking to
you, I am laying my heart bare. Surely we must set these things right in our
progress towards self-government. I now introduce you to another scene. His
Highness the Maharaja who presided yesterday over our deliberations spoke about
the poverty of India. Other speakers laid great stress upon it. But what did we
witness in the great pandal in which the foundation ceremony was performed by
the Viceroy? Certain it a most gorgeous show, an exhibition of jewellery, which
made a splendid feast for the eyes of the greatest jeweller who chose to come
from Paris. I compare with the richly bedecked noble men the millions of the
poor. And I feel like saying to these noble men, “There is no salvation for
India unless you strip yourselves of this jewellery and hold it in trust for
your countrymen in India.” I am sure it is not the desire of the King-Emperor or
Lord Hardinge that in order to show the truest loyalty to our King-Emperor, it
is necessary for us to ransack our jewellery boxes and to appear bedecked from
top to toe. I would undertake, at the peril of my life, to bring to you a
message from King George himself that he excepts nothing of the kind.

Sir, whenever I
hear of a great palace rising in any great city of India, be it in British India
or be it in India which is ruled by our great chiefs, I become jealous at once,
and say, “Oh, it is the money that has come from the agriculturists.” Over
seventy-five per cent of the population are agriculturists and Mr. Higginbotham
told us last night in his own felicitous language, that they are the men who
grow two blades of grass in the place of one. But there cannot be much spirit of
self-government about us, if we take away or allow others to take away from them
almost the whole of the results of their labour. Our salvation can only come
through the farmer. Neither the lawyers, nor the doctors, nor the rich landlords
are going to secure it.

Now, last but
not the least, it is my bounden duty to refer to what agitated our minds during
these two or three days. All of us have had many anxious moments while the
Viceroy was going through the streets of Banaras. There were detectives
stationed in many places. We were horrified. We asked ourselves, “Why this
distrust?” Is it not better that even Lord Hardinge should die than live a
living death? But a representative of a mighty sovereign may not. He might find
it necessary to impose these detectives on us? We may foam, we may fret, we may
resent, but let us not forget that India of today in her impatience has produced
an army of anarchists. I myself am an anarchist, but of another type. But there
is a class of anarchists amongst us, and if I was able to reach this class, I
would say to them that their anarchism has no room in India, if India is to
conqueror. It is a sign of fear. If we trust and fear God, we shall have to fear
no one, not the Maharajas, not the Viceroys, not the detectives, not even King
George.

I honour the
anarchist for his love of the country. I honour him for his bravery in being
willing to die for his country; but I ask him-is killing honourable? Is the
dagger of an assassin a fit precursor of an honourable death? I deny it. There
is no warrant for such methods in any scriptures. If I found it necessary for
the salvation of India that the English should retire, that they should be
driven out, I would not hesitate to declare that they would have to go, and I
hope I would be prepared to die in defence of that belief. That would, in my
opinion, be an honourable death. The bomb-thrower creates secret plots, is
afraid to come out into the open, and when caught pays the penalty of
misdirected zeal.

I have been
told, “Had we not done this, had some people not thrown bombs, we should never
have gained what we have got with reference to the partition movement.” (Mrs.
Besant : ‘Please stop it.’) This was what I said in Bengal when Mr. Lyon
presided at the meeting. I think what I am saying is necessary. If I am told to
stop I shall obey. (Turning to the Chairman) I await your orders. If you
consider that by my speaking as I am, I am not serving the country and the
empire I shall certainly stop. (Cries of ‘Go on.’) (The Chairman : ‘Please,
explain your object.’) I am simply. . . (another interruption). My friends,
please do not resent this interruption. If Mrs. Besant this evening suggests that
I should stop, she does so because she loves India so well, and she considers
that I am erring in thinking audibly before you young men. But even so, I simply
say this, that I want to purge India of this atmosphere of suspicion on either
side, if we are to reach our goal; we should have an empire which is to be based
upon mutual love and mutual trust. Is it not better that we talk under the
shadow of this college than that we should be talking irresponsibly in our
homes? I consider that it is much better that we talk these things openly. I
have done so with excellent results before now. I know that there is nothing
that the students do not know. I am, therefore, turning the searchlight towards
ourselves. I hold the name of my country so dear to me that I exchange these
thoughts with you, and submit to you that there is no room for anarchism in
India. Let us frankly and openly say whatever we want to say our rulers, and
face the consequences if what we have to say does not please them. But let us
not abuse.

I was talking
the other day to a member of the much-abused Civil Service. I have not very much
in common with the members of that Service, but I could not help admiring the
manner in which he was speaking to mw. He said : “Mr. Gandhi, do you for one
moment suppose that all we, Civil Servants, are a bad lot, that we want to
oppress the people whom we have come to govern?” “No,,” I said. “Then if you get
an opportunity put in a word for the much-abused Civil Service.” And I am here
to put in that word. Yes, many members of the Indian Civil Service are most
decidedly overbearing; they are tyrannical, at times thoughtless. Many other
adjectives may be used. I grant all these things and I grant also that after
having lived in India for a certain number of years some of them become somewhat
degraded. But what does that signify? They were gentlemen before they came here,
and if they have lost some of the moral fibre, it is a reflection upon
ourselves.

Just think out
for yourselves, if a man who was good yesterday has become bad after having come
in contact with me, is he responsible that he has deteriorated or am I? The
atmosphere of sycophancy and falsity that surrounds them on their coming to
India demoralizes them, as it would many of us. It is well to take the blame
sometimes. If we are to receive self-government, we shall have to take it. We
shall never be granted self-government. Look at the history of the British
Empire and the British nation; freedom loving as it is, it will not be a party
to give freedom to a people who will not take it themselves. Learn your lesson
if you wish to from the Boer War. Those who were enemies of that empire only a
few years ago have now become friends. . . .

(At this point
there was an interruption and a movement on the platform to leave. The speech,
therefore, ended here abruptly.)